MOODLE 1

OUTLINE
 What is Biochemical Engineering?

 What is Biotechnology?

 Who is a Biochemical Engineer?

 What industries are they found in?

WHAT IS BIOCHEMICAL
ENGINEERING?
 Is the application of Chemical Engineering principles
and approaches to biological based principles and
systems e.g Penicillin production.
 Biochemical engineering is a branch of chemical
engineering that deals with design and construction of
unit process that involves biological organisms or
molecules to produce high quality bio products.
 Biochemical Engineering employs the basis of the pure
sciences as well as engineering principles
 Application of Engineering principles to biological
systems
WHO IS A BIOCHEMICAL
ENGINEER?
 The Biochemical Engineer is one that combines the
knowledge of biology, chemistry and engineering to
create products from raw materials and development
 A Biochemical Engineer’s main focus is optimizing the
growth conditions of microbes under different
conditions in a reaction mixture of a large volume.
 A Biochemical Engineer aims at designing an
economic process in which maximum biomass yield is
observed with lesser input of raw materials and at a
cheap cost, thus ensuring maximum efficiency ,safety
of operation and quality of products.
WHAT ARE THEIR ROLES?
 Designing and constructing chemicals and
pharmaceutical plants.
 Collaborating with scientists and other disciplines in
the design and implementation of new products and
production techniques.
 Working in production, modifying and optimising
production process.
 Maintaining production lines and machinery.
SIMPLE WORK OF A BIOCHEMICAL
ENGINEER
 Cost of starting materials + cost of prod. (labour,
utilities, material transport, separation & purification
(use of extractors), absorbents, loss of yield), shipping
& packaging, waste disposal, advertising & marketing,
bad batches etc.
 What to do as B.Eng (Chemical Engr.) Fermentation
development & optimization, media optimization,
screening, separation, analytical methods, research
associate etc.
WHAT INDUSTRIES ARE THEY FOUND IN?

FOOD
ENVIRONMENTAL
HEALTH PHARMACEUTICALS
AND SAFETY

BIOCHEMICAL
BIOTECHNOLOGY CHEMICALS
ENGINEERING
FOOD
They improve food processing techniques and methods
of producing fertilizers to increase quantity and quality
of food.

ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND

SAFETY (HSE)
They develop solutions to environmental problems such
as pollution and remediation.

BIOTECHNOLOGY
They develop and design the process to grow, handle and
harvest living organisms and their by-products.
PHARMACEUTICALS
They work hand in hand with other chemist and
scientist in discovering and producing new medicines
and cure for newly emerging health problems.
CHEMICALS
GENETICS